Boys will be boys…

After the school holidays I always look forward to returning to normal, back in a routine if you like. Knowing that each day will be the same. I have decided I no longer like this feeling as we are only two days in to the second half of the first term and Tom has an after school detention.

This annoys me a great deal.

Firstly; it annoys me because FFS we have only had one full day back at school what could possibly have happened already that warrants an after school detention? Secondly; it annoys me that the school emails me at 4.37 pm to tell me that the said after school detention will be tomorrow (today in real-time) and that it will be from 3 pm until 3.45 pm. Thirdly; it annoys because it does not say why? Nor in fact does it give any other information that may seem relevant to a parent and Fourthly; it annoys me well, just because it bloody well annoys me.

The email says that if we require any further information about why our child has an after school detention we should reply to the said email with the child’s name and a request for further information.

WTF. Why do I have to do this? Is it not completely obvious that yes, I do want to know more information? I am the parent of said child. Yes I do want to know more about the after school detention, i.e what it is for?

I can not rely on Tom to know this information, he is a boy. He walks around with his eyes and ears closed and only speaks in grunt and only to persons of his own age and gender.

I would also like to know why on a Tuesday afternoon after school on Halloween no less, when he has a party to go to at his friends after school I will now have to come and pick him up from the bloody after school detention and take him to the party late. I have also arranged for the chimney sweep to come today at 3.30 pm as I thought I would be home alone (Elsie also has a Halloween party at a friends) and that I would be able to accommodate the chimney sweep, without them getting in the way. Clearly this will now not be the case.

Last night when I got home from work and interrogated Tom about the after school detention, he did, as expected, claim to know absolutely nothing about it!

He told me some incidents that had happened in the day but apart from silly boy stuff and goofing around a bit I couldn’t really fathom any reason as to why. So I did as required and emailed back to request some more information.

By this point it is nearly 6 pm and I don’t expect to receive a reply tonight!

So unimpressed by this am I that it puts me in a very grumpy mood. I appreciate that if a child needs to be disciplined for something they should be. However, I am also a firm believer in communication. The lack of which from the school is starting to drive me slightly nuts.

I do not want to become one of those Mum’s that is constantly having to go in to the school to find out what the hell is going on or to keep phoning up and emailing all the bloody time. If there is a problem, please by all means let me know but please feel free to give me all the details at once. I would find this extremely helpful.

This morning we were at a loss as to whether Tom had a detention or didn’t, he still very adamant he didn’t. As yet, obviously, there was no reply to my request for further information and I didn’t expect there would be before we all left for school/work. So where does that leave us.

In bloody limbo land, that’s where!

At 9.45 am the email containing the further information arrived. Apparently this was a ‘carry over’ from last term. Tom was late to English and did not attend his 10 minute lunchtime detention so it was escalated to an after school detention, which will be today.

I am trying to maintain my mantra of In with love and out with anger but is it is very bloody difficult. I want to shout, loudly, at someone.

I do recall Tom telling me about being late to English one day and that he got a ten minute detention for it. I think I even blogged about it as it was during the period of many detentions, the girlfriends and the fight and the general stresses of Toms foray in to secondary school. I think he did attend the detention but what the hell can I do about that now.

I cannot speak to Tom he is at school. I can email them back and wait another 7 hours for a reply but he will have done the bloody detention by then. What I am thinking to myself, is the bloody point of all this?

I may as well have said; Tom you have detention, we don’t know what it for but you will have to do it because the crappy email I got from the school explains nothing and it doesn’t give you enough time to try to sort anything out one way or the other and to be honest I have really not got time for this shit!

The likelihood is that he would have shrugged his shoulders and said, Okay mum.

I have since picked him up from the after school detention, where I noticed it looks like he has spent the last 45 minutes drawing all over himself, very educational indeed. He was completely nonplussed about the whole debacle.

Why oh why do I worry like I do?

Arrived home just in time to see the chimney sweep unloading. Hooray. We will be warm this Winter after all.

Moving on…

It is official I am over J. Well ok, I’m still bewildered but in a good way not a bad, unhappy, bloody pissed off kind of way. That has now passed. His loss is another mans gain, or so everyone keeps telling me anyway!

I have after a bit of gentle persuasion returned to the dating site, where I am now ‘chatting’ to a couple of other fellas. Just like that!

It is quite tedious in the beginning to be fair. It is that bit where you are messaging but not sure if you want to exchange numbers or not. Once you do exchange number you cross that boundary from being pleasant and testing the water to indecent proposal, almost in a nano second.

I have exchanged numbers with M 45 yrs old from Kent, he is alright, for want of a better word. He can not spell though and I find this a little bit frustrating. However, not one to judge a book before I’ve opened it, I am happy to engage at the moment. It is all very normal chat still as we only exchanged yesterday, lets see how this evening goes.

I am bit loathe to get in to the whole texting for weeks thing again. It is time-consuming and your heart starts to rule your head as we have already discovered. You lose all rational thinking and your libido becomes your brain.

Oh talk of the devil. He wants to phone me!! Ohhhhhh…

Don’t make me talk to you. I don’t want to. I’m a keyboard warrior I dont want to actually have a conversation with you, where I might have to think quickly and react properly and well, just be nice I suppose. I can’t!

… Just had an hour-long chat with M. It went okay. We talked for an hour so it can’t have been awful. He said I was quieter than he thought I would be. The buddies would be laughing out loud at that. It is awkward that first phone call.

He has a West Country accent, I wasn’t expecting that. He sounds nice though and is very, very chatty I almost couldn’t get a word in sideways. Something I don’t usually have a problem with. He was funny and sounds down to earth. Do like him? How the hell am I supposed to know?

I need to see him. I can’t tell from a phone call. He sounds like a bit of a mans man. We talked about the kids, he doesn’t have any, I didn’t ask why. When I told him about Tom and his testosterone he said ‘well, it’s a boy thing aint it. We are all like that. I was a right little sod when I was younger’. I fear, not much may have changed.